“He was worried his various criminal activities would come out if the police started probing into his affairs. Bent was scared of the police as much as he was scared of his former associates — the ones he’d cheated and double-crossed. But most of all he was scared of the boy. He kept seeing that boy everywhere, though how could he tell it was the same boy? The boy would have changed quite a bit by now, wouldn’t he?” Eden Swann broke off. “Why are you looking at me like that? Don’t you believe me? The boy does exist! Since we moved to this place there have been ten more letters... Want to see them?”
“Have you got them?”
“Some of them. Bent destroyed most of the letters he got, but not all. Those he asked me to burn I kept. As possible evidence. In case something happened — which now it has! They are upstairs, in my dressing-table drawer... Want to see them?”
But as Eden Swann led the way back into the dreadful kitchen — through the hall, past the body of her dead husband, and towards the stairs — they heard the front doorbell ring.
There were three policemen standing outside.
They had come to investigate a report about a gun having been heard fired at the house known as The Mongoose. Someone had phoned them.
The next moment they saw the informer — he was standing further back, leaning on his bike — a tall teenage boy, with very red lips, a sneering mouth, and a woolen hat pulled over his eyes.
“His name was Nicholas Hay and he had nothing to do with any of the events at The Mongoose. He lived locally... I only mention him because at one point Antonia was led to believe that he was in fact Dmitry Cunningham, Pinkie’s brother... The policemen told us off for not calling them at once but they were most understanding when they found we had had no immediate access to a phone.”
It was two days later and Payne was once more talking to Captain Jenner at the Military Club. They were sitting in the club library, only this time Antonia was with them.
“The papers are full of the murder. Dulcie — my wife — can’t get enough of it.” Captain Jenner waved The Sunday Telegraph. “She thinks my uncle deserved what he got. Good riddance to bad rubbish. That about sums up her attitude. She’s disappointed that you get no mention.”
“Thank God for that,” Antonia said.
“It says here that all the threatening letters my uncle received were the work of his wife, former child star Eden Swann. The police discovered mutilated copies of music magazines from the sixties in a case under her bed — Pop Weekly and Fabulous — she had used them to cut out letters for the I kill killers messages. The moment they showed them to her, Eden confessed that she had done it as a form of revenge on her monster of a husband who had made her life hell. The incident of Pinkie’s brother attacking my uncle and shouting threats at him had given her the idea. She went on sending messages to her husband for five years and succeeded in driving him mad. But she absolutely denies killing him. She insists it was an outside job. And it does seem to have been an outside job!” Jenner lowered the paper. “The gun that she picked up from beside the body and fired in the air was not the gun that killed my uncle! That’s what the forensic team discovered!”
“Yes. Most curious.” Payne nodded.
“The police haven’t been able to track down the gun that did kill my uncle, though they have searched everywhere! It doesn’t seem to be one of his guns, all of which are accounted for, locked in a drawer in his desk. The killer must have brought two guns. But why? It makes no sense!”
“Actually, it makes perfect sense. The killer had a very good reason for bringing two guns,” Antonia said.
“Technically speaking, the murder was an outside job.”
“What do you mean, ‘technically speaking’? The police seem to incline to the view that Eden Swann is innocent!”
“Oh no, she is not innocent,” Payne said. “We managed to work out exactly what happened. Eden Swann played a pivotal part in the murder of her husband. You see, Jenner, mad as it may sound, Eden Swann invited the murderer to come to The Mongoose and kill your uncle.”
Jenner stared back at him. “She... invited the murderer?”
“Yes. As good as. She did it when she appeared on that TV programme, Where Are They Now? You told me that she had spouted a good deal of irrelevancies — but they were not all irrelevancies. Some were clues. She gave the murderer all the information he needed. She said she often left both the kitchen and garden doors open — she also announced the name of the house and made it clear it was in Highgate, within striking distance of Highgate Cemetery — she also mentioned the fact that her husband wore a tartan dressing gown, in case his altered face deceived the murderer. She wanted her husband killed.”
“She knew the killer?”
“No. She had no idea who it might be.”
“I don’t understand—”
“She issued her invitation on the off chance that the murderer might be watching the programme and that he — or she — might decide to follow her leads,” Antonia explained. “She knew her husband had enemies — that there were people out there who had it in for her husband — people who badly wanted him dead — former associates whom Bent had double-crossed, Pinkie’s brother, and so on — and she hoped they’d come over and kill him. She wanted her husband to die a violent death — that’s what she believed he deserved!”
“Couldn’t she have killed him herself?”
“No. She was fat, she was slow, and, most importantly, she was scared of him,” Payne said. “She would probably have missed if she had used a gun and if she’d gone for him with a knife or the poker, your uncle would have overpowered her. He wouldn’t accept any food or drink made by her. She knew her limitations, Jenner. She knew she wouldn’t be a match for him. So she hoped one of his enemies would do it for her. She put her trust in Fate. She said so herself. She believes that if something is meant to happen, it will happen. Que será, será.”
“It’s... it’s a fantastic notion.” Jenner shook his head. “Completely dotty.”
“I agree. But that’s the kind of person your aunt is.”
“Are you sure? However did you work it out?”
“Eden practically told us,” Antonia said. “A ‘miracle’ had taken place. One-in-a-million chance. She had meant it to happen. What she meant was that one of Bent’s enemies had watched the programme — they had got her message — and they had acted on it.”
There was a pause. Captain Jenner leant forward. “Who was it? D’you know? It couldn’t have been Pinkie’s brother — he is currently in a juvenile detention centre, that’s what the paper says... Was it one of my uncle’s fellow gangsters?”
“No. It was someone — completely unexpected,” Payne said.
Antonia gave a self-deprecating smile. “In the kind of book I write this is known as the least-likely-person solution.”
“The never-suspected-person solution, more likely,” Payne murmured.
“But who is it? Who? The police still haven’t got a clue. Why — why are you looking at me like that?”
“You are familiar with the killer, Jenner.”
“What the hell do you mean? I am nothing of the sort!”
“Oh, but you are. You told me about her—”
“I told you? Have you gone mad? Her? Her? Is the killer a woman?”